FIRECRACKER 50 WEEKEND IN BRECK IS HERE...

This weekend hosts the Firecracker 50 in Breckenridge, Colorado. This race serves as the Mountain Bike National Marathon Championships. Contrary to many claims, the course climbs just under 4000 feet per lap, each lap being 25 miles of suffering. This event has grown HUGE with 750 racers and a long waiting list to get in. And if you think this is a monster ride, I challenge you to check out the Humper, which is nearly 6000 feet of climbing in 30 miles. The Humper will teach you a new lesson in sufferage city....pre-ride next week, you are all invited.

I WAS THINKING I NEED SOME NEW TOOLS TO WORK ON MY BIKES WITH....

NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE!

Bout time, the weather has just been stellar for three weeks now, and it's been a pleasure to not bitch about how crappy it is outside for an extended period of time, and last night was the bomb. Ya get on a fun roll around here in Eagle and it's hard to stop when it's "right", and not having a race schedule to worry about keeps all doors open all the time. If ya get home from work at 11:30pm and it's 70 degrees in Eagle, with a light breeze blowing, you mount up the headlights and go ride into the darkness, it's just what you do in these parts. Just watch out for the killer moths.

Dare I say I was thinkin 24 of Moab out here last night?

1200 Lumens of sheer Nite Rider madness keep you rolling in the black of night

1:00am is when the sickness truly begins to kick in. Only problem is trying to find a riding partner when you get off work near midnight, but then again, half the fun of riding at night is going solo and letting the imagination run wild, which has you either shitting yourself or smiling uncontrollably during the entire ride, or smiling and shitting yourself simultaneously.

THE MEASURE OF A GOOD DAY......

We are all freeks in our own seperate ways, some of us can't wait to tell everyone that we halucinated through another Wide Spread concert, three nights in a row, some of us measure our worth somehow by where we finish in bike races and think the higher we finish in the race, the more worthy we are socially. Some of us want to go ride "Middle" and "North" and let everyone now how much cooler it is up valley right now to ride. Then there are the rogues who have their "stash" spots when it gets too hot in Eagle to ride, where a quick jaunt just out of town limits gets you to spots where you will probably NEVER see another mountain biker on your ride. This is where and what I chose today, and there is so much more of it out there that so few know about.

I prefer this spot today....

With good reason, this stuff still rides like it did before the mountain bike was even a thought....git sum, in your place.

AND ON THE SEVENTH DAY.....

This picture was recently sent to me, after one of our monster wind storms, with a caption that read "see, even the all mighty wants the entry into Hockett Gulch open". The sender remains anon for their own protection. If not familiar with this spot in Eagle, the local MTBers would love this access through a very small portion of private property to be available and open, however it remains closed due to the property owner's wishes. It does appear however that this giant cottonwood has temporarily crashed the party by destroying the fence line where "some" riders typically would "like" to enter this property to access the goods..In other not too exciting news, here is a pic from the annual Copper Triangle backwards Father's Day ride, affectionately known as the "drop your friends while they take a piss in brutal headwinds ride" in some parts of the world which took place on Father's Day, hence the namesake...

SO YOU ARE STUCK WITH A PICTURE OF ME

Not too many of you showed up this week to short track race so you got stuck with a picture of me racing for once, in my own event, and it was damn fun...check out other killer photos at
http://www.codydownard.com/

SHORT TRACK IS SUPER FAST AND SHORT INDEED..

The Dusty Boot Short Track venue on the eve of Race #4, it's going to be a VERY fast course, and a very short lap. Perfect for spectating and racing.

The moon rises before throw down #4
See you there at 5:00pm tomorrow....

WORLD CUP COMES TO EAGLE, COLORADO

Yesterday was the unofficial World Cup group ride in Eagle as Squirt Lube owner/inventor Dewet Marais and Ray popped up in Eagle for a mid day spin on their way to Fat Tire Bike Week in Crested Butte, Colorado. Dewet of course is from South
Africa, and by the way, he mentioned he will not attend a soccer game there due to the obnoxious fucking horns blowing all game, this apparently is a long lived tradition and was not just recently invented to annoy the rest of us trying to gain an interest in the World Cup soccer tourny here in the states.

Ray made the trip all the way from the north island of New Zealand, undoubtedly one of the world's greatest places, to ride some butta singletrack in Eagle..

Race Course Climb south of Eagle Ranch

The story of the gall damn obnoxious horn, but boy did they sound good when the USA scored yesterday...

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!

THE TURNER SULTAN, FULL SQUISH 29ER, 120MM OF TRAVEL, WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE?

It's time to jump on a Turner today and tomorrow at the Mountain Pedaler in Eagle, Colorado as Thane from Turner Bikes has shown up with a full size run of Flux and Sultans for your stomping pleasure. So he hooks me with a size large Sultan in this killer "acid wash" kind of color frame, raw but way cool. It comes all Deore XT'd up with Stans rims and BIG OL fat Kenda Nevigal big ol nob tires. I have him set it up "super squish" cause I like to feel full suspension when I ride it. Fox 32 Fork with Fox Float RP23 for rear squish.
Thane with the full line up...

Pretty sure this machine could be mistaken for a Lincoln Town Car with handlebars that eats up EVERYTHING in it's path, everything.

DW Linkage, whut obstacles? It aint carbon, and I like that on mountain bikes.. The Sultan is THE RIDE if you are looking to ride and are not worried about being a gram shaving weenie. She weighs in at just under 30lbs. with this build package, but brotha, after riding my hard tail, 80mm travel bike for the last 1.5 years, this thing was SIKK. WARNING, DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME LOOKING FOR THE CLEANEST LINE IN "THE SHIT". Just point the Sultan where you want to go (straight down) and ride it, you will eat up everything in your path like Minar. Now that I'm pretty much done ever being concerned with training to race and have concentrated on just having fun, I can't think of a better fit for myself for my trail bike, I just need to find a bag of money to buy one. With 120mm of travel front and back this bike is frighteningly easy to ride and crush on, you will feel like a rockstar upon completion of every ride. The Sultan also climbs and corners like a champ, you gotta ride it to understand what I'm talking about, check it Friday in Eagle and blow yourself away. 29 inch wheels + 120mm of travel + DW link + bomber frame = perfection.

DUSTY BOOT SHORT TRACK RACING RETURNS THIS FRIDAY

The Dusty Boot Short Track series returns to the Eagle County Fairgrounds the next three Fridays and wraps up on July 9th. Thanks to some very appreciative folks who stepped up and made these races possible we've got three more weeks of racing and beer ahead. See you out there Firday at 5:00pm!photos dan davis

THE HARDSCRABBLE HUMPER/FONDO HAS BEEN COMPLETED, HIGHLIGHTS

Start at Third Gulch Top of Third Gulch road to.... Pipeline

Then Wolverton loop....Top of the Firebox Singletrack Short Cut...Across and up Firebox road, the climb that keeps giving...

To Dead Cow entryTHE Dead Cow, second of many stream X'sDozens of shots like this....

Hike a Bike to Mike's Night Out, you will be hurting here, badly. Then the long awesome descent.

Then back towards Catwalk...

Descend Easy Rider, Fast

Climb to and drop Star Wars and the Canyon

Climb and descend The Plunge

And then the ride gets hard, turn right at the bottom of the Plunge and head back up Hockett and Tick Alley, descend Abrams and then back to the start/finish along the rec path. Right at 40 miles, get some.

NBD

HERE'S A BEATER FROM MARK CAVENDISH TODAY AT THE SWISS....

Cavensquish veering left into the rest of the sprint with heads down behind burrying it...you decide who caused it.

Turns out that Cavensquish got fined for veering into the line of Heinrich Haussler, that's pretty much how I saw it....
photo from velonews

HARDSCRABBLE HUMPER, THE DESTROYER OF MEN AND WOMEN MTB'ERS

Just a small portion of a brutal loop....

The Hardscrabble Humper, nobody has a clue what this is but someday they will. This will take place on the morning of August 15th and leave from a spot in Eagle, Colorado the day after the Leadville 100. If you did not get into Leadville, and you want to ride in a true mountain bike event (actually, a pirate race), come and participate. The loop is yet to be completed by any rider for a couple of reasons, but the first 15 miles of the 40 has 4100 feet of climbing, and it's tough vert, trust me. This is a FREE event, just bring your cell phone "in case" you need it. Details will come as we get closer, but this is a MONSTER ride and already has some large names committed to showing. The first "attempt" at the loop was crushed by the mountain due to it being the day after a local race. The next attempt was crushed due to weather. Tomorrow in the AM is attempt #3 for anyone who wants to punish thyself, rollin at 8:30 or so.

Wolverton is the first section of "rest".

We got reconned on the original recon ride, apparently the government is interested in what we have going down....

ENGLAND'S ROBERT GREEN IS AN INSTANT HERO....GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL

Look, most of you know I have no true value for the sport of soccer, but since A2B has such a worldly and loyal following I thought it fit to put up at least one post about the FIFA World Cup. Today was the day American's long awaited, an Englishmen finally tipped, something we thought we would never see in our lifetimes, and he tipped America. England's Robert Green became an instant hero in the good ol USA today when he tipped a soccer ball into his own net giving the USA a tie in their World Cup match today. I'll go out on a limb and say the Oven Mitts he had on had something to do with not being able to control the ball, he'd have been better off with one of those Sumi Wrestling suits on. I did not watch the game (all though I saw the vij highlight of the goal on a "Faces of Death" highlight on the eve news), and I'm pretty sure I will not watch one World Cup game, as I have a strong feeling that the score in every single game will be either 0-0, 1-0, 0-1 or 1-1. You can tell me who wins the game and I'll reply "fantastic!". I fully understand my ignorance of this amazing spectacle of sport, but I can live with that. I do understand why that one announcer dude screems GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL so long when a goal happens to be scored, it's because he only gets to say it about once every three games. In the meantime, I think it's wonderful that Robert Green got the USA off to a grand start in the World Cup today, he will sleep very well tonight indeed...Let me know how the rest of the contests go.

By the way England, perhaps try having your Goalie use these on his hamds, they absorb everything.

In the meantime, pro road cycling has me wanting to stick my finger down my throat and puke, however today's ride at the Dauphine should be noted by Tour fans....how about this Slovak kid?

WATER GONE WIILD...

This is where your Glenwood Canyon road bike experience will currently end, until the great water of 2010 goes away to California and Las Vegas.

Cheers...

VAIL TOWN SERIES GOES OFF IN EAGLE..

Large fields greeted all racers at the Eagle Ranch Classic this past Wednesday eve with over 300 racers participating. It was all Jay Henry over Jake Wells in the men's elite race while Gretchen Reeves crushed the women's open field. It was a classic Eagle Race indeed with multiple groups getting mixed up on the singletrack descent and dust flying in the air which are both what make this race super fun. A big thanks to Mike B. from Venture Sports for sitting in on the mic for me so I could come out of retirement for the night and throw down with my bros in the 45+ Expert field, all of which kicked my ass for the most part, but it was super fun and good to be chasin everyone around in circles..

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE...

Well of course, why would it happen any other way this year? With a winter that was extremely dry through ski season, and colder than an eskimo's pecker in a birthday suit, and then hammered us with snow after the ski slopes closed and remained freezing FOREVER. Then of course, with shit tons of snow still in the high country, it turns 90 degrees for a week and this is the result. The Eagle River is blowing out big time, bigger than ever recorded. Yesterday approaching 7500 cfs when it is normally around 3000 this time of year. Homes and neighborhoods are flooding and it's frightening around here for some folks, I hope it cools a bit and we get a break, but you can't jack with mother nature when she does her thing...here are some pics from Gypsum, crazy.

Rodeo Rapid on the Eagle River in Eagle, Colorado, the hood. This could kill you right now, especially with "the pipe" around the next bend just about a foot above the river.




And then there is the positive side of the H2O thing, as the Herminator and Davis brought "Gunner" to the line at the Teva Big Air for Big Dawgs comp. The rookie started a bit slow but learned quickly...

Gunner prepares for launch